


The spirit in the flesh

by intravenusann



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Gen, Obscurial Credence Barebone, Obscurus (Harry Potter), Parasites, Prose Poem, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 02:02:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10065050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intravenusann/pseuds/intravenusann
Summary: The beaten child learns quickly not to speak out of turn, or at all. To make of his body a smaller thing, to make of his soul something smaller still. Unto this child appeareth a shade.





	

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: References to parasites, child abuse, and character death.

As maggots appear in dead flesh and the worm crawls through the apple, there comes a thing upon a magical child who fears himself.

The common understanding is that the Obscurial eats away at the child’s magic, which he is too afraid to use. It replaces the magic with itself instead, a worm eating the tongue of a fish.

The common understanding is that the Obscurial cannot survive the Obscurus inside it. The common understanding is that the creature kills its host, as the worm starves the fish.

But the common understanding also is that there has not been an Obscurial in over a hundred years, not since the burning times. Not since Salem.

What child is this, who, laid to rest, sleeps in the lap of Mary Lou? What child is this, who, hiding his magic, sleeps in the house of a new Salem?

Did the fly lay eggs on the fruit of knowledge, which God forbade man to eat? Did the eggs not hatch and the worms not burrow into the flesh of knowledge?

Was there no putrefaction in all of sinless Eden?

The beaten child learns quickly not to speak out of turn, or at all. To make of his body a smaller thing, to make of his soul something smaller still. Unto this child appeareth a shade.

Unto this shade appeareth a child of immense greatness which it hath been tasked to guide and to protect.

Mary Lou Barebone considers herself the prophet of a new age. She writes her prophecies in ink on paper and in leather on skin.

And so the child called a liar grows into a liar. And so the child called a sinner grows into a sinner. And so the child called a witch’s son grows into a wizard.

And so the seed of the forbidden fruit grows into a tree which bears fruits of knowledge.

And so the fly comes to lay its eggs which grow into worms.

Gellert Grindelwald considers himself the savior of his people. He performs miracles in blood which will put an end to death.

He has eaten of the fruit of the tree and the knowledge clogs his throat. He recognizes the magic of an Obscurus because he has the knowledge.

There was a girl in England set upon by beasts, and the beasts were men without magic. There was a girl in Sudan set upon by beasts, and the beasts were men who called themselves Christians. There was a boy in New York set upon by beasts, and the beasts called themselves his family.

Was it the Obscurus within each of them that killed them? Was it magic? Or was it magic in the hands of men who lack knowledge?

Or was it magic in the hands of men who have mistaken power for knowledge?

Does the Obscurus eat of a child’s magic as maggots eat dead flesh? As worms eat apples and the tongues of fish? 

As man ate of the fruit of the tree?

Who amongst men knows for what the Obscurus hungers except the Obscurial which it occupies. It hungers for what he most desires: to be safe, to be hidden, to protect more than to go without pain. For the pain precedes the fear precedes the Obscurus. What pain is so heavy that the bones of his body cannot bear it? From pain he came and unto pain he will go.

The transubstantiation of the flesh into smoke, of pain into unspeakable pain. A miracle. A revelation.

Before his death, the child went into the wilderness and for forty days the devil appeared to him in a pleasing shape. The devil tempted him with forbidden knowledge and the pleasures of the flesh. 

But the spirit — which had appeared to the child long before the devil put pleasing hands upon his neck and hung his mark there like the yoke over the ox — lead him not into temptation.

The spirit became flesh. The child became man.

Man had long ago eaten of the fruit in the garden.

Credence Barebone always knew that magic was real and that the spirit was within him. He could withstand the lashing of whips and the laying on of hands. He was tempted by the devil, but did not obey his wickedness and arrogance. He obeyed the spirit, which was within him.

And so the spirit obeyed Credence. It unmade him and tore, screaming, through the city of wickedness and the wilderness. Unmaking as it went. Unmaking cars and streetlamps and neon signs.

Man and woman and the devil pleaded with the spirit to have mercy, but it was in weakness and wickedness.

The spirit itself was unmade. 

What is knowledge to the worm? What is flesh to the spirit? What is pain to the beaten child?

God created the earth from nothing, in darkness, formless and empty. He created from the deep all things: the worm that eats the apple, the maggot that eats the dead, the man, the woman, the devil, and the Obscurus.

From the formless and empty, Credence Barebone remade himself and rose from the darkness on the third day. The resurrected body, the spirit made flesh, is an even greater pain to bear than the dying and the unmaking.

But the hungers of the Obscurus are the hungers of the Obscurial, and Credence Barebone hungers to make the devil pay him in flesh.

**Author's Note:**

> I am on tumblr at jeffgoldblumsmulletinthe90s.tumblr.com


End file.
